Argumentative essay The world that human is living today is fulfilled with technology. The scope of such technological applications is not limited in one specific field. To be more specific,, technology can be used in the teaching area, agricultural development, aerospace engineering, medical science and service industry etc, which brings a substantial number of benefits. However, technology itself is a double-edged sword. When engaged in medical treatment and personal benefits, some people are skeptical about the practicability and feasibility of using technology to improve one’s mental or physical abilities.
Some opponents might claim that people are born with given characteristics and it is morally unacceptable to change the intrinsic properties. However, I am strongly against this statement and I think technology ought to be used to improve people’s mental and physical abilities, as such application provides numerous social and physical advantages to humans, booms local economy and brings a brighter future when human is facing a harsh living conditions.
First of all, as beneficiaries, people would receive plenty of benefits, after their physical capabilities are improved by technology. That technology can relieve the suffering of patients by enhancing the physical abilities is the first advantage. Some patients are suffered from incurable diseases and have a life that is even worse than death. Take cancer as an example, it is one of the most pernicious ‘killers’ in modern society. According to a Cancer Statistics (Siegel, Miller & Jemal, Jan 2017), there are 1,688,780 new cancer cases in 2017 and 00,920 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States. In this case, if the patients are able to upgrade their somatic functions by biotechnology, countless people with strengthened body could reduce the pain from cancers.
This idea is strongly supported by Masci (2016), who expertises in science, stating that” instead of leaving a person’s physical wellbeing to the vagaries of nature, science will allow people to take control of their species development, making themselves stronger, healthier and happier. Hence, it is necessary to use technology to improve people’s physical abilities, as they could have the double guarantee to fight with illness. Besides reducing pain, technology could also eliminate the inequality by offering remedy for the unfair preconditions. To be more specific, people with inborn diseases would face unfair opportunities during learning or even working process compared to healthy people. This is also demonstrated by Heiliger and Corne (2012), who state that many factors that shape people’s life are not in individual control. Some people are equipped with damaged or imperfect body.
For instance, In the movie ‘Gattaca’, Vincent, a person who wanted to explore the space, was being treated unequally due to his continental heart disease. He was refused to work in the space over and over again. Such unfair treatment was originated from the prior disadvantageous factors. If improvement measure is available, it is a chance to offer everyone an equal platform to display their talents. Bostrom (personal communication), a leader in the transhumanist movement from Oxford University, also says “The enhancement project could allow people who have natural inequalities to be brought up to everyone else’s level”.
As a result, human enhancement by technological means could be regarded as an solution to overcome the inborn limitations and to mitigate social inequalities Furthermore, enhanced body will promise a brighter future for human beings. The economy of a country or even the whole world will be boosted by the increasing employment rate and productivity level With the assistance of enhancement technology. To be more specific, there are countless people becoming disabled due to inevitable factors, such as car accidents, wars or campaigns. Sometimes they even have a hard time taking care of themselves, let alone working for a company.
Thus this situation will eventually hurt the national gross domestic product (GDP). According to an online report from the United Kingdom (2006), there were more than 10 million people in the UK registered as disabled, and 60 percent of these having significant mobility problems. As a result, the employment level was far lower than the average one. Physical enhancement technologies, such as artificial limbs that allows the disable to behave normally and restore physical capabilities, would definitely boom economic for the UK, not to mention the increase in wellbeing for the patient.
In a consequence, by increasing the active working population, technology which improves physical abilities especially for the disabled is considered as an economical catalyst to a country’s development. What’s more, the improved physical abilities are the strongest guarantee of the survival of human beings. It is the fact that the planet humans are living in today is degraded with a surprisingly rocket speed. Human would either choose to adapt to the harish environments or to die. It would be a long period for ordinary people to get used to harsh climates or conditions.
In this case, improved body could support human and facilitate the process of adapting to the severe living enriomemts. It is not the choice for human to choose from, we are living in the environments that everyone is seeking the best. As a famous professor in Victoria University, Nicholas Agar (personal communication), says “We are no longer living in a time when we can say we either want to enhance or we don’t. We are already living in an age of enhancement. ” In other words, people are unrealized that the world is under the process of enhancement.
In order to support humans, technology should be used to improve the physical abilities. As a old adage says, each rose has thorns, there are still several religious problems related to human enhancement technology. Take brain chip as an example, many Americans, who are highly religious, are skeptical about the prospect of implanting a computer chip in the brains to improve the mental abilities to make them stronger and faster, since many believe that they are the Mark of the Beast, without which no one can buy or sell (de la Vega, 2005, p. 2) and they will receive severe punishments from God if they choose to change their bodies. However, the problems generated by religion are insignificant and negligible compared to the huge benefits from human enhancement technology. In a addition, religious people overwhelmingly shift the focus point to the religious rules, which do not create any tangible harmful effects at all. The so-called punishments cannot be proved or confirmed by any existing researches or documents.
Bennet (2016) argues in his article, if such technology exists that gives practical advantages, which is rejected by religious problems, it is a greater crime not to implement such technology than to operate it. Simultaneously, not every Christian or church opposes to this technology. According to Masci (2016) many mainline churches will support enhancement in a positive way as they will see aspects of it as attempts to improve human well-being and alleviate suffering. In short, religious problems are somehow exaggerated by the opponents of human enhancement technology, and the disputed problems are gradually being reduced.
All in all, enhancement is not a fresh label in modern society, because we human have been trying to improve the physical abilities for thousands of years. Technology is a way for human to realize this dream and it does lead to several advantages, such as eliminating inequality, conquering diseases, booming economics and fighting with the degrading earth. Meanwhile, the religious problem is decreasing and the potential disadvantages are negligible compared to the benefits. As a result, it is an inevitable process for technological means to participate in human enhancement by improving the physical and mental abilities.